Can’t get no satisfaction – new build ratings go through the floor

Can't get no satisfaction - new build ratings go through the floor

Here’s something which somewhat slipped through the net of housing news.

In March the Home Builders Federation released their annual customer satisfaction report. It shows pretty much all customer satisfaction metrics for new build homes falling. We compared HBF surveys from the past 5 years and found significant falls in satisfaction with condition and quality, and a rise in the number of problems over the period.

Satisfied with condition when moved in: -10% since 2012

Satisfied with overall quality: -6% since 2012

Experienced more problems than expected with new build: 11% rise since 2012

Would recommend builder: -6% drop since 2012

Full stats below.

It’s worth mentioning that, with over 50,000 returned surveys, these are quite comprehensive figures. Not only that, but the HBF is the body representing house builders, so these reports provide important evidence that the quality of our new build housing stock is falling.

As long of the cost of land is so high, this situation is likely to worsen, as our New Civic Housebuilding model explains.

Our current speculative system of housebuilding encourages developers to compete to pay the most for the land. This in turn drives up their costs, encouraging them to compromise on quality, as well as affordable housing contributions, in order to ensure healthy profit margins.

The solution to this is to get a grip on the land market and put an end to this speculative feeding frenzy which, ultimately, is punishing consumers with sub-standard homes.

Shelter’s New Civic Housebuilding model looks to do exactly this, and should be considered by the next government in order to fix the underlying structural problems stopping us from building the homes we need. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be building high-quality, genuinely affordable homes that people really want to live in.